As nutrition coaches, we have the privilege of building close relationships with our clients as we help guide them towards their goals - be those related to aesthetics or fat loss goals, performance goals, or goals of optimal health. Along the way, as we work on building a better relationship with food and our habits, we get to share parts of our stories that are relevant to our coaching styles. We’re taking time this year to share more about us, our nutrition journeys and transformations, our road to becoming nutrition coaches and educators, and the amazing clients we have the privilege of working with. 

HOW I BECAME A NUTRITION COACH

Even though collecting and sharing knowledge is a core part of who I am as a person, becoming a nutrition coach feels like it was almost an accident.  Kate and I knew each other from our CrossFit gym where she was a coach and I was a member.  We coincidentally ended up taking our Community Health Education Specialist exams together.  She was finishing up her master’s program, and I was finally completing my bachelor’s degree (at age 29) in Community Health Education. 

At the time, I was also coaching my very first nutrition “client”: my then-boyfriend, now-husband who was competing in Olympic weightlifting and focusing on maintaining strength while often cutting body weight for competition. Kate floated the idea of working as a coach with her not long after, but I didn’t really think of myself as coach material.  When she asked again about a year later (after I had mentally recuperated post-graduation), I decided I could always resign if I found that I didn’t enjoy it or wasn’t good at it.  I shouldn’t have worried: I absolutely love it. 

MY FAVORITE PART OF BEING A NUTRITION COACH

As someone who has a full-time corporate office day job, I find coaching way more fulfilling than my “real” job. I love helping my clients reconstruct the way they think about nutrition and themselves, sharing in their frustrations and their victories, and providing cheerleading and feedback when they need it.  But I really, really love when my clients have the knowledge and confidence to feel like the expert on their own nutrition. 

MY OWN PERSONAL NUTRITION JOURNEY

I didn’t really think about nutrition at all until I was an adult. Despite being overweight during my adolescence, I was very fortunate that my parents never really discussed my weight and just generally tried to model pretty reasonable nutrition habits. When I moved to college, however, my lack of knowledge and my general disinterest in all forms of physical activity meant that I gained well over the “freshman 15”.

Even before that, I had felt like I was pretty much just destined to be heavier than my friends and cohorts because I always had been. My body image had never been good, but I came from a fairly overweight extended family so I had just chalked it up to being mostly genetic and never really tried to do anything about it. After getting on the scale at an unrelated doctor’s visit and seeing my weight for the first time in years, I was incredibly upset. It took a few months of seething over it, but I finally decided to make it my New Year’s resolution that year to lose weight.

I had no idea what I was doing or how long it would take, but I distilled all of the information I could find down into a couple of core principles that seemed to show up again and again: control calories, get enough protein. This was in roughly 2007, and I didn’t have a smartphone (let alone a tracking app), so tracking my intake involved a lot of tiny notebooks and a significant amount of guesswork, and a lot of consistent but imperfect effort.

I eventually ended up losing about 75 pounds over the course of three years. There were times that I got frustrated or upset about how long it was taking. I made plenty of mistakes, but I did end up establishing habits that have carried me through the last 14 years.

MEET MY CLIENT: Gabbi

A lot of my clients come to me with big weight loss goals, but Gabbi came to me wanting to learn to support her body and improve her fitness.  In her initial signup form, she shied away from listing fat loss as one of her primary goals because she knew already that she had a tendency toward getting into cycles of restriction and overindulgence.  She also really loves exercise and movement and was more focused on being able to enjoy the things she loved than suffering through them for the sake of weight loss.

After a pretty quick adjustment period, we were able to find a spot where she could lose body fat without feeling restricted.  As she really embraced being consistent but flexible, she found that she could eat at restaurants and still feel good in her workouts and slowly but steadily make body composition changes.  We also focused on making sure that she was using tracking as an awareness tool, rather than the focus of her nutrition. 

Her relationship with food and her self-talk have improved so much during our time together.  And she is still setting PRs in the gym and happily trying all kinds of new movement, thanks to the ways she supports her body through her nutrition.

It was always a goal of mine to work on my nutrition once I felt like I had enough of my life together (ha). Finding KLN through an Instagram post was probably the best thing to come out of my mindless scrolling habits. I cannot even tell you what drew me in, but I remember looking through the coaches on KLN and immediately gravitating towards Whitney. Her "about me" on the site resonated with me so much. I had the experience of losing about 80 pounds since high school by a vicious cycle of fads but after the shut down and gaining some weight back I just knew I was in a place to actually learn about nutrition. I didn't want to keep getting sucked into the trends, I wanted to work with someone that had the education, experience, and passion for nutrition. 

Even though I still have my tougher weekends or sneaky thoughts from my past come back, overall my relationship with food and fueling myself have changed drastically. I am an active person, and I learned that for a long time, I was not giving my body what it needed to perform the way I wanted it to. 

I've learned that giving myself grace can be just as important as finding my protein for the day. Whitney was the first person that I felt comfortable with being this vulnerable about my body, weight, and food habits with. Feeling safe while learning is a huge plus. 

I'm grateful for the changes I've made to my mindset and behaviors, but I'm most excited to keep going and growing.

We are committed coaches who work with committed clients and love nothing more than helping our clients find a sustainable approach to nutrition that allows them to work towards their goals without white-knuckling their way through yo-yo diets. Learn more about our KLN team here!